Found this interesting post at TPM cafe that I think deserves more attention -
When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country...
-snip-
...since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education.
A true story about Bill Bennett
There is another diary here that illustrates this theme -
They Are After the Veterans Admin Next
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/1/111542/999
I, for one, cannot stand by and let the country be dismantled. I cannot believe that there is a small group of people that has convinced a good chunk of the public, very much contrary to their vital interests, that the very institutions that define our country should be dismantled and privatized. Free public, secular education is a hallmark of America. It is what has made America what it is today. To abandon public education is to abandon the American ideal. It says that not every person in the country has the right or should have the opporitunity to rise out of poverty. People who advocate education privatization are actually advocating the establishment of a permanent underclass.
Veterans benefits are another cornerstone of American civic society. Lets forget for a second the obligation of the geovernment to take care of veterans who have given all for their country. It was the GI Bill that enabled literally millions of returning veterans to recieve a college education. It was VA housing loans that jump started the post-war housing boom and to this day allows lower income enlisted the possibility to buy a house. It was establishment of taxpayer supported PUBLIC colleges such as CCNY and the State University systems that allowed the post-WWII economic expansion and gave rise to the concept of "The American Dream" and the idea, according to our fuckwad Vice President, that the "American way of life is not negotiable". I guess, what he meant was, "The American way of life is not negotiable if you are rich and white and can afford the private institutions that will give you that leg up above the teaming masses".
Privatization of medical care has been disasterous for the country. We spend more per capita for health care and yet lag behind most other industrialized countries in basic health indicators. This is a result that is easily seen to the vast majority of Americans. Ordinary Americans pay the price every day, in money and in health, for this market inefficiency. Is this the way to market our point of view to the country? "See how the free market has messed up medical care, do you want to bring this market inefficiency to your children in school also?" I dont know.
I do know this though - when Bill Bennett says that he wants the schools to fail, what he is saying is that he wants America to fail. When someone proposes that the VA should be privatized, they are saying that they want our veterans to fuck off and die. When Grover Norquist says he wants to shrink government until it drowns in the bathtub, he is actually saying that he wants American society to devolve into dog eat dog neo-Darwinian savagry where only the fittest survive and the less able are left the scraps. That is what I hear when I hear such things. Now, the challenge is, to teach the rest of America how to translate those messages...